Conference and multi-person calling have become increasingly popular and common calling techniques for businesses as well as individual subscribers. These multi-line calling techniques allow multiple callers to be connected thereby allowing the callers to communicate with each other. The user may couple two or more telephone lines such that the user and the parties associated with the respective telephone lines may communicate with each other in a conference call. Alternatively, the user may place multiple calls and communicate with each of the called parties without allowing the called parties to communicate with each other.
Many conferencing systems employ a dedicated line for each participant in the conference call. The reason typical conferencing systems require participants to use their own communication device is because signal processing is thus made a much easier task and additional features can be provided to the customer. For example, if a single participant is using a dedicated communication device and subsequently is communicating with the other participants via a dedicated line, that single participant's voice can be easily separated from the other participants' voices and can be altered in a relatively easy fashion. In other words, when each participant is using a dedicated hard line, there exist many methods that allow one participant to alter another participant's voice. Participants can cut out audio or otherwise alter another participant's participation if they do not wish to speak with him/her. Participants may also mute their own dedicated communication device if they wish to talk to someone else and have a side conversation without transmitting their audio to everyone.
One drawback to such a configuration is that each participant is limited to using their own communication device when conferencing with the other participants. When many participants from the same office are on the same conference, it can be a nuisance to require each participant to have their own communication device. It is often desirable for the participants who work in the same office to all gather in a common area, i.e., a conference/meeting room, to participate in the conference call together. Having several participants in the same room may help to improve the conference experience because these participants can actually see and interact with one another in a natural setting. Unfortunately, when several participants are in the same room there may not be enough communication devices for each participant to control their own audio. One conference room may be equipped with three communication devices, and this will suffice as long as no more than three participants wish to engage in the conference call in the same room. As long as each participant is able to have their own communication device, known methods can be employed to enhance the conference experience for each participant.
However, if there are four participants that wish to take part in the conference in the same room and there are only three communication devices, the participants quickly become frustrated. At least two of the participants will need to share a single communication device or another communication device will need to be tracked down and brought into the conference room. If two of the participants attempt to share the same communication device, it becomes very difficult for other participants to mute and/or alter the voice signal from one of the two participants. Other participants may wish to only listen to what the first sharing participant has to say and may wish to mute the second sharing participant. To do this, the listening participant must toggle between muting and not muting of the shared communication device as the sharing participants take turns speaking.
Another problem that arises when participants attempt to share a communication device during a conference is that if one participant wishes to have a side conversation with another participant then the shared communication device needs to be muted. This may be acceptable in the event that only two participants are sharing a communication device, but if ten people are sharing the communication device, then all ten people must be muted if two of the participants wish to have a side conversation. The advantage of having multiple participants share a communication device is that there is no need to supply quantities of telephone equipment in proportion to the number of attendees. If more participants wish to engage in the conversation, no additional communication devices need to be employed. However, as participants begin to share a communication device, the advantages offered by using a single communication device, i.e., processing capabilities and additional features, become more difficult to implement.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a communication device that provides the scalability of a shared communication device while also providing enhanced communication features offered by multiple dedicated communication devices.